How come 'natural disasters' usually occur in the poorest places?

Question

It seems to me mother nature is quite selective and only selects poor places.

Answer 1

New Orleans was built below sea level and was an accident waiting to happen.  The fact is that many poorer people cannot afford to move out of these areas and these populations are high.    Like in Indonesia or Burma,  where are these people going to go,  even if they knew it was coming and how do they get there?   Most don't have cars.

Answer 2

If that's the case, I enjoy being poor. I'll have plenty of stories to tell my grandchildren about all of the tornadoes and hurricanes that I've survived through.

I'll never move away from Louisiana. <3

Answer 3

Not really: Kobe earthquake 1995, San Francisco 1906 / 1989, New Orleans 2005...

It's true that poorer people are more likely to suffer as a result of natural disasters because (a) there are more poor areas than rich areas in the world, and (b) they don't have good buildings, food supplies, medical care, infrastructure, etc.

Answer 4

Where do people tend to congregate? In the safe areas,  good trade routes, favorable climate, etc. The longer a town has been established and the more favorable the living and producing conditions, the more likely it is to be a higher income area. Not that disasters don't happen in rich areas, its just the rich can be more selective where they live and tend not to live in places where their house and fortune could disappear overnight.

Answer 5

Not really, natural disasters occur all over the world in LEDCs and MEDCs. The main difference is that MEDCs are rich enough to make defences and as a result the damages are minimised meaning you don't hear as much about them, while the damages are fully inflicted in poorer nations due to their lack of resistance and these receive full media attention as a result.

Answer 6

Well, the other answers are fine, but...

For an area like Bangladesh, you are right. The low economic status reflects both the history and environment of Bangladesh. Mother nature created the low river delta that is now inhabited by millions of poor people. They don't have much chance to live elsewhere, but that land will always be subject to flooding, and tropical storms are common in that area. So, that area will have great difficulty in building up a rich country. Every time some investment in infrastructure has taken place, a storm comes in and the storm surge washes it away. Well, mother nature was there first.

A second aspect Is that societies with poor economies often have poor education systems and rely on traditional ways of life. As conditions change, they are not able to modify their behavior, and when some environmental problem arises, they suffer more than would happen in a more advanced society. It isn't mother nature's problem or act. The ignorance of the society leads them to continue to over graze and cut down all the trees, which leads to 'natural' disasters such as flooding and desertification. But mother nature didn't just pick a poor country to turn to desert. The people there did it. Mother nature just did her thing and it washed away the land that the people had ruined.

:-D The USA suffers from tornadoes more than other countries. Switzerland suffers from avalanches. If those things happened in Ethiopia or Sudan, a lot more people would be killed. So poor societies suffer more in any case.

Answer 7

natural disasters happen everywhere.

many people are usually killed in third world countries and low income cities because they either live in low lying areas, have poor building codes (which causes mass destruction and fatalities), have strong reliance on gov't subsistence and action to help them survive daily, have little to no communication and warning capacity and have little desire to improve their lives or save themselves in the case of danger.

this is not my opinion, btw, it is factual.  sadly you will hear of more mass fatalities as populations accumulate in cities like this to seek out limited resources and  to survive.  this is the irony of the need to survive in poor areas.

btw=  if all people left or were properly removed from new orleans as they were warned 12 hours earlier, no homes were ver built below the flood plain and all invalid/bed ridden were safely transfered before the storm, no one would be blaming the gov't for something which is an issue of local responsibility.

Answer 8

Because we all need to send positive energy, help and support to the poorest places, we all need to pray at the same time for all of mankind all around the world.

We need to unite as one nation, there is enough for everyone in this world, its time we all gave to each other and rejoiced in the love of our Lord